Thursday, June 23, 2011

The nation's most powerful senior's group telling the Wall Street Journal it was ready to deal on cutting Social Security benefits. The AARP's policy chief John Rother admitting "some of our members will no doubt be upset."

So upset that within hours the AARP was insisting this was always their position, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.

"We can make changes that are modest and we can make changes with a great deal of lead time so we don't need to affect anyone who is currently retired today or near retirement," said said David Certner, AARP's legislative policy director.

But the group has long opposed such cuts.

As one of their ads says: "AARP has been working to preserve social security for more than 50 years."

Politicians on both sides were stunned.

"I think it's a very good thing," said Erskine Bowles, who co-chaired President Obama's fiscal commission. "I think they've recognized reality, that the trust fund of social security is operating in a substantial cash negative position."

Bowles' commission proposed trimming Social Security benefits for wealthy seniors and slowly increasing the retirement age to 69 by the year 2075 - incremental changes many lawmakers, like Republican Johnny Isakson, support.

"We could fix Social Security tomorrow just like they did in 1983 and not take a penny away from anybody but move the eligibility up to be more reflective of life expectancy," Isakson said.

But both parties have been reluctant to make those changes and risk angering the nation's most consistent voting bloc - seniors.

Said one senior: "Social Security is an insurance, it's not a gift, it's not welfare."

And that's where the AARP comes in. Its support for modest cuts could give lawmakers the political cover they need to fix Social Security at long last.

Why is AARP doing this now?

"Essentially it's because of the debt cutting talks that are going on right now on Capitol Hill led by Vice President Biden," Cordes explained. "Some proposals had been floated to bring Social Security into those talks to cut it as a way to bring down the debt and the AARP insists that Social Security should not be raided, that it didn't cause the debt and that it shouldn't be used to lower it."

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The war chest of former U.S. Rep. and current Congressional candidate Bill Foster is a little lighter thanks to the scandal involving former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner.Foster, a Batavia Democrat who served as Congressman in 14th District from 2008 to 2010, has donated the $1,000 he received in 2008 from Weiner to the Northern Illinois Food Bank.Weiner announced his resignation from Congress Thursday. He faced intense pressure to quit after revelations that he took lewd photos of himself, sent them to women online and then adamantly lied about doing so.Republican leaders had called for Foster to return the “tainted” money before Weiner stepped down. Foster made the donation before Weiner’s resignation, but did not give a specific reason.Foster said the contribution was made on March 7, 2008 for the March 2008 special election against Republican Jim Oberweis.“This was before I was elected to the office or had a chance to meet Rep. Weiner,” Foster said Friday.Foster is seeking the Democratic nomination for the new 11th District Congressional seat in 2012.? 2011 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit http://www.suntimesreprints.com/. To order a reprint of this article, click here.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

To install this download:Download the file by clicking on the button Download (above) and saving the file on your hard disk. Double-click the program file sounds.exe found on the hard disk to start the Setup program. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to complete the installation.Instructions for use:

Note: If it has used the Office Sounds add to your computer with an earlier version of Microsoft Office (for example, if you have installed the snap-in for Microsoft Office 2000 and then upgraded to Office XP), may need to uninstall this add-on, and then download it and install it again.

To start using Office sounds

On the Toolsmenu, click Options.In the Optionsdialog box, click the Generaltab, select the report through sounds check box, and then click OK.To select or cancel the selection of certain sounds In the Startmenu, point to settings, click control Panel and double-click the sounds and multimediaicon.In the sound eventslist, scroll down to Microsoft Office and select the sound that you want to enable or disable.Adjust the volume by sliding the volumebar.Then click OK.

To remove this download:

To remove the download file, delete the file sounds.exe.In the Startmenu, choose settings and then control Panel. Double-click Add or remove programs. In the list of currently installed programs, select Microsoft Office sounds and then click Remove or Add / Remove. If a dialog box appears, follow the instructions to remove the program. Click Yes or OK to confirm that you want to remove the program.

Microsoft Office Web Components is a collection of Component Object Model (COM) controls for publishing spreadsheets, charts, and databases on the Web. It is also used to view these items when published and to view data access pages.

If you have Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003, Microsoft Office Access 2003 and Microsoft Office Excel 2003 installed, Office Web Components allow you to publish interactive data as part of a Web site. Office Web Components, used with Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.01 or later, you can view a published control (spreadsheet, chart, or database) on a Web page and view data access pages.

When you install the Office Web Components tool, users can view published components and access data on the Web pages without having to install Office 2003. Note: If you don't have an Office 2003 license, authorizing the use of Office Web Components in static, non-interactive mode limited to the customer and only view. If you have this license, authorizing the use of Office Web Components in interactive mode.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Users of the programs of Microsoft Office XP and 2003 Word, Excel or PowerPoint should install all high-priority updates from Microsoft Updatebefore downloading the Compatibility Pack.

When you install the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP or Office 2003, you can open, edit and save files with the versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint file formats. The Compatibility Pack can also be used with Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003 and PowerPoint 2003 Viewer to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see 924074.

Note: If you use Microsoft Word 2000 or Microsoft Word 2002 to read or write documents containing complex scripts, please visit 925451 for information about how to allow more recent versions of Word documents that will display correctly in your version of Word.

Administrators: The administrative template for Word, Excel and PowerPoint converters contained that are included in the Compatibility Pack is available for download.

Update: The Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack has already been updated to include SP2. In addition, thanks to the Compatibility Pack, if the files.DOCX or.DOCM contain XML tags, these tags are removed when the file is opened in Word 2003. For more information, see KB978951.